- Leah Sharibu, the schoolgirl kidnapped by ISWAP in 2018, is reported to now lead the sect’s medical team in the Lake Chad area
- She was allegedly “trained” by the terrorists to provide medical care to injured Boko Haram fighters and women after her kidnapping
According to local security sources, Leah Sharibu, the lone schoolgirl held captive by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) members who invaded the Government Secondary School, Dapchi, in 2018, now leads the sect’s medical team in Lake Chad.
Sharibu was kidnapped on February 19, 2018, along with 109 other students from the Government Girls Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe State.
Except for Sharibu, five girls were reportedly killed in captivity, while ISWAP returned 104 to their families.
ISWAP reportedly kept Leah Sharibu because she refused to comply with their demands and convert to Islam.
The government had begun talks with the terrorists, who threatened to kill Sharibu if their demands were unmet.
In September 2018, ISWAP executed Saifura Ahmed, one of three humanitarian aid workers abducted in March by ISWAP and linked to the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC), threatening to execute the other two and Leah Sharibu.
In October, ISWAP killed the second, Hauwa Mohammad Liman, and threatened to keep Sharibu as a “slave for life.”
According to a security source, Leah was “trained” on how to provide medical care to injured Boko Haram fighters and women after her kidnapping.
Terrorists in the Northeast have been known to force captives with expertise in fields such as medicine, nursing, engineering, and computer science, among others, to train their members in such fields.
“She was ‘trained’ as a medical personnel and now leads the ISWAP medical team in the northern part of the Lake Chad area,” according to a source.
After divorcing her first husband, with whom she had two children, the captive is said to have remarried an ISWAP commander.
The victim’s father accused the government of abandoning his family in one of his few interviews about his daughter’s plight.
“I have not heard from the federal, state, or local governments since my daughter was kidnapped.” I’m even more perplexed now. “I need your help to put pressure on the Federal Government to do something about my daughter’s release,” he had stated.